"And they heard a great voice from heaven saying unto them, Come up here."
(Rev. 11:12)
Today's portion speaks of how God's voice sounds, but it is only after the prophet had been willing to be killed--shamed and overcome by evil for God--and there's a period of silence. Am I ready to pass through a time of temporary not knowing why, even experiencing a season of darkness and obscurity, of fruitlessness--that's what death feels like--or will I too "kick at the goads" and say "No! I won't serve God then!" It may be only after that I would hear God's still, small voice saying, "Come close by my side, and let me whisper to You the way I see things."
I look at I Kings 8:58 (Solomon's temple dedicatory prayer) and Psalm 51:17. King David did not parade his uprightness before God and offer himself to serve Him--no; by Ps. 51, he knew he had committed atrocious, unforgivable sin before God and was fully broken. But that broken spirit was the heart the Eternal Spirit would not despise--in fact, had inclined the variables of life to turn to Him, and it was Him alone Who would keep that heart fixed there, in God's forgiveness and acceptance and choosing to accept us, in spite of how so very unworthy we were!
The child of God can only say, brokenhearted, "You know what is in my heart; but You can have all of it anyway."
And, I think, God responds, "That's what I needed to hear."
(Photos taken above in 1970, right in 1986)
